Meaningless
by scntlla
Summary: "What do you want meaning for? Life is desire, not meaning." - Charlie Chaplin (and Gentaro Yumeno, inevitably)


"It doesn't mean anything," Ramuda said.

But he also didn't say it, because the only thing he vocalized was his denial of those close, personal, hard-hitting questions that Gentaro asked him before. Did he hate Jakurai for real? Why was he lying to the world about his true nature? And, a more hidden, unsaid inquiry: _Why won't he reveal himself to Gentaro?_ Wasn't it unfair that Ramuda knew almost everything about Gentaro, yet Gentaro knew so little about Ramuda? So why couldn't give in a little?

Wouldn't it be better if liars stuck together?

"It's meaningless," Ramuda said—and didn't say—all at once. "Don't even bother yourself with it. This is a story you'll never be able to read. Leave it alone, Gentaro."

" _Leave it alone."_

And he complied, only because he really didn't want to start a fight. He didn't want to bring up disharmony and discord between him and his teammate, even though it was a better idea to do so. So he kept his mouth shut, and his worries locked in his head where—alongside the rest of his thoughts—they could swarm and gather until they either dragged him down with their unspoken weight, or where they could disappear behind a cloud of forgetfulness and contentment.

If only he was brave enough, or more confrontational at heart, because then he could face Ramuda straight on. And then he wouldn't have to settle for anything except the _truth._

* * *

"It's meaningless," Ramuda said, right after he kissed Gentaro. Although the kiss wasn't even the easy part of it. Before that, Ramuda made sure to drag Gentaro down by his sleeves—clasping down on the soft fabrics of his clothes, keeping the flighty limbs under his treacherously tight hold, weighing down the wings of Gentaro's flight with the stones of his hands—beneath the crisp weight of colorfully painted nails and slender fingers. Then they stared at each other, tirelessly so. Bright green and blue, mixing into an eye-straining splatter of neon colors, forever lost in each other like a swirling tidepool.

And his movements were so quick and effortless that it wasn't too hard to imagine that he was some sort of doll or puppet. He moved so fluidly and recklessly, like the bones in his body were replaced by elastic wires, tilting and shifting in any way that suited him. Right now, being forceful was his suit, and he crashed against Gentaro to show it— slamming his lips against his in a sweet but painful collision. They gasped for air in between breathless touches.

Finally, Ramuda let him go, and sounded those simple words like they were nothing: nullifying any affection and meaning that (might have) existed between them.

As if something like that could be without meaning, in the first place! But it was as Gentaro always and faithfully quoted.

"What do you want meaning for? Life is desire, not meaning."

And Gentaro heard that message loudly and clearly, even though the space was quiet between them. He could see Ramuda's lips and hear Ramuda's voice repeat that sentence word for word, although his mouth was closed after the kiss and his eyes were icy and unyielding. It was an unspoken agreement, almost, and Gentaro felt cheated because he never consented to such a lonely arrangement.

Or if he did, then he severely regretted it. Because now, more than anything, he wanted _meaning_. He wanted to know why Ramuda kept himself obscured, and why his lies were so well-fortified that not even a perpetual liar like Gentaro could see through them. He wanted to know why Ramuda kissed him out of nowhere. Kisses weren't meaningless—not to Gentaro, anyway. Even the smallest of pecks had some sort of idea behind them, or some semblance of _affection_ coming from the person that gave them out.

And Ramuda kissed him, for sure. Not just that, but he dragged Gentaro down to his level, stared at him deeply in the eyes, and then stole his breath within his own—all in the same _minute_.

So why was he denying it all? Why was he playing this stupid and juvenile game? Why did he say things like "It's meaningless" so carelessly?

Why, why, why?

* * *

"You want the meaning, don't you?" Ramuda asked one day. He sat in a chair next to Gentaro, leaning his elbows on the table and staring at the bitten end of his lollipop. "You wanna know the secret, don't you?"

"I'm not a child," Gentaro insisted, despite the yearning in his chest that agreed with every word that Ramuda said. "If you don't want to talk about something, then I won't pry. Like I said, I have no intention of starting a fight."

"So diplomatic of you, Gentaro. So predictable, too." Ramuda sighed, and twirled the lollipop between his fingers. Although Gentaro shot him a sideways look, Ramuda kept his gaze affixed forward.

He said: "Of course, I really love you for that. It's hard to find people that won't absolutely want to figure out every single little thing in the world."

"Coming from you, I guess that's a truer statement than anything else I'll hear today."

"But, I wouldn't mind if you agonized over me a bit. Like, if some part of you still _really_ wants to know, then another part of me secretly wants to let you know, too." He turned a bit in his seat, so he could face Gentaro easier. Then he leered up at him, with an innumerable amount of mystery gleaming in his sparkling eyes. "You know what I mean?"

"...I do," Gentaro said while closing his book with a defeated motion. He didn't read a single sentence up to now. "I know _exactly_ what you mean."

"So then—"

"I'm just not used to being on this side of the equation, is all."

"Which side are you talking about?"

The writer traced the book's cover with his finger, looping his nail over the author's name again and again until he found the right words to reply with. "I know this game, Ramuda. I really do. And I'm just a bit disturbed, perhaps, because I'm usually not the one playing it."

"Oh, I know! Mister Writer over here _loves_ taking away people's meanings and making them his own, huh? And that's usually a good game for him to play. But it's no fun when the tables are turned, is what you're saying."

"Yes."

Ramuda smiled wider, toothier, _hungrier._ But his eyes seemed impossibly deep and full. And his body moved closer and closer, until he was only a hair's length away from melting into Gentaro completely.

Gentaro's heartbeat thrummed erratically beneath his chest. He hoped the layers of clothing on top of it would muffle its wayward sound. But as Ramuda kept smiling and kept moving towards him, Gentaro had the suspicious feeling that he _could_ hear his heart, after all. Ramuda could hear his heartbeat betray his seemingly calm exterior—he could see through the layers of clothing and skin until it was nothing but bone and intercellular fluid. He could talk past Gentaro's ears and directly pierce his heart and mind with strange words.

He could do all that and more, over and over again, without any hesitation in the world. And Gentaro only half-wished that Ramuda would hesitate.

"Are you lying again, Gentaro? It's hard to tell, y'know!"

"You know very well that it's useless to lie around you."

"You know damn well that wouldn't stop you from trying."

"True."

Gentaro averted his gaze. He stared at the book, and watched as its figure shifted farther away from him, with Ramuda's wonderfully manicured fingers pushing it aside.

Those same fingers cupped the elegant curves of Gentaro's face, and turned his head firmly so they were eye-to-eye.

Lie-to-lie.

"I'll give you the meaning if you really, _really_ want me to."

"That easily?"

"Yup," he said. "That easily."

"And what if I don't like what it means? What if your answer hurts me?"

"Oh? Here I was under the impression that you didn't _have_ feelings like the rest of us humans!"

"Stop stealing my lines, Ramuda. It's hard to improvise when you take the words out of my mouth."

"Fair enough. But the question still stands. Do you really, _really_ want to know?"

"Yes," Gentaro answered far more quickly than he would like. But it was as if his mind disconnected from his body just then. No thoughts, no worries, no precautions—just sweet, wonderful, _blind_ intuition and instinct. He didn't even have time to regret his overly eager response, because he kept talking ahead of himself. "I really, really, _really_ want to know. But only if you're willing to tell me."

"Hee hee! That sounds about right! Like I said, I really like you, Gentaro!" Ramuda giggled as he threw his arms around the other, leaving the lollipop on the desk beside him, ignoring the awkwardness of their positions, and disregarding the grating noise of the chair legs scraping against the ground because of the sudden force moving it. He tightened his hands around Gentaro's slender figure, linking his hands at a tight knot at the base of the other's lower back.

He squeezed so tightly, Gentaro wanted to ask for air. But Ramuda readjusted himself soon enough, and moved ever closer, still. Because even though they were melted into each other, it wasn't _satisfying_ enough. No, if Ramuda had his way, he would absorb his enemies like a sponge absorbing water. He would envelop and _devour_ them if he could, and he'd make sure there was nothing left except the remnants of confusion and power—nothing left but the _shells of themselves_ —that he wanted.

But Gentaro never let him have his way, at least not entirely.

That's why he loved him so much.

"I'm not kidding, either," Ramuda muttered. His head was on Gentaro's shoulder now, and his words were butterfly wings taking flight near his ears. "You want meaning, Gentaro? You wanna know _why_ I do some of the things I do? You and everyone else should take a number, then. There's a long line of people who ask me ' _Why?'._ The doctor's not even the least of them."

"Then—"

 _No, no, no._ Ramuda silently said. _Don't interrupt me, I'm talking now._ "But there are too many reasons. There's too many _meanings._ I don't have time to sort through it all. It's bad enough that my fabrics get mixed up, but my morals, too? There's no use sorting through those, y'see."

"..."

" _Life is desire, not meaning,_ " Ramuda quoted perfectly, the volume of his voice never coming above a whisper. "Gentaro, none of that means anything. The kisses, the games, none of it. There's no deep meaning behind anything I do."

"I figured as much. You're as unpredictable as they come."

"Maybe. But that's not all. It'd be nice if I could be like you, finding meaning behind everything I do. But I'm not like you. I'm way cuter, for starters."

"And much shorter."

"If I cut you at your kneecaps, we'd about the same size."

"That's assuming I'd let you be around me with anything sharper than safety scissors."

Ramuda laughed. It always sounded like a fake, hollow thing to Gentaro's ears, but right now it was unexpectedly pleasant. Gentaro squirmed as Ramuda's laughter died down into quiet murmurs—arms tightening the embrace even further.

It was all so uncomfortably warm.

"I like you a lot, Gentaro."

"You said that already."

"I'll keep saying it until it's untrue."

"Then don't say it anymore."

Ramuda peeked up at the other, an unreadable expression plastered on his insufferably adorable face. "I like you, Gentaro. I like you, I like you, I like you."

"Ramuda."

"Okay, okay. But I was serious about before. Life is desire, not meaning."

"Yes, yes, I know. You don't have to beat the poor quote to death."

"Yes, I do. I'm making a point here. So I'll say it again: life is desire, not meaning."

Gentaro sighed. It got to the point where Ramuda's body weight felt like nothing more than a fleeting sensation, rather than the obvious disturbance that it should have been. Their warmth collided into one, but Gentaro was able to ignore the beads of sweat that formed at his middle (where Ramuda was hugging him) and at the back of his neck (which felt unsafe in Ramuda's presence).

"And supposedly, your little games are meaningless. We've been over this, Ramuda."

"Well, you forgot about another little part, Know-It-All."

"Oh? And what would that be?"

"The _desire._ "

He glanced upward still, face unchanging as his lips slowly curved upward. "There's no real meaning behind anything I do, Gentaro. But there's one thing that I _do_ know."

"And what would that be?"

"It's that desire part. I just want _you._ "

Ramuda moved in, and planted a kiss on the other's jawline. He dusted the surface of his smooth skin with tiny pecks, and Gentaro could barely suppress the giggle that wanted to escape him. What Gentaro couldn't admit, Ramuda freely flaunted, and his voice became the summer breeze, misting over with joyous laughter and soft murmurs. Then Ramuda's hands got more adventurous, and started roaming the fabric-landscape of Gentaro's clothes, looking for the places to unfasten, unbutton, un- _anything_ so the walls would finally come down.

Gentaro allowed this, _invited_ this to happen, even, but in his attempt to facilitate the process, he fumbled over himself, and he tumbled sideways out of the chair—effectively and immediately bringing Ramuda down with him.

It just so happened that the leader ended up on top, left knee awkwardly dug into the floor beneath them, right knee pressed into the square of Gentaro's upper thigh. His hands were on either side of him, closing the space between his clothes and his skin, revealing the writer for his truly thin, slender physique. Ramuda's face ended up half-pressed into Gentaro's chest, and when he lifted his head, he could finally see the shape the other was in.

Gentaro's hair was fanned out beneath him, hazelnut strands soft and silken. His face was very-slightly-hardly-noticeably flushed, a tinge of red spreading through his cheeks and nose. One arm was above his head, moving slowly from the painful contact of having been drove into the floor. The other was laid down at his side, in between his leg and Ramuda's left knee. Everything else was inconsequential because all the space was disappearing, and there was nothing except a fine layer of cloth between Gentaro, Ramuda, and vastly emptying exposure.

"Do you still want this?"

"It's all I want."

"My, my. Before I thought you were giving me mixed signals, but now I'm sure of it."

"I like playing games, Gentaro. You can opt out if you want."

"I don't want that."

"Then what are you complaining for?"

"I just don't want to do things we'll both regret later."

Ramuda's lips hovered over the base of Gentaro's neck: his arms and legs rectified as he adjusted himself more _comfortably_ over the other, like a neon pink blanket over the length of his body. He chuckled.

"Me either."

He came crashing down on Gentaro again, kissing his lips and siphoning his air like he needed it to live. And Gentaro received this force, replying with his own compliance, sighing and gasping each time. The unfastening, unbuttoning, un _doing_ came at a much different pace this time, with robes coming off of pinned arms, and hoodies being tossed off narrow shoulders.

Out of all the lies Gentaro has ever lived through, this one had to have been the sweetest.

* * *

"It's meaningless," Ramuda said and didn't say. He was lying on his stomach in bed, where the sheets were messy and the pillows more so. He rested his head on his arms as he glanced sideways at Gentaro, taking in the sight of him in all his morning glory. The other was so picturesque, even in his sleep, that it was really unfair. How could he seem so peaceful and sweet, when hours ago he was clearly in agony and misery over the unsolvable enigma that was Ramuda? How could he appear so untroubled, when Ramuda's erratic nature kept him so worried, endlessly and tirelessly throughout his days?

How could he be so effective at making him _feel_ something, when Ramuda tried so hard to come off as untouchable? He didn't form this fling so he could be on the bitter side of it. He didn't make this representative group out to be anything more than a temporary force—something he could use as leverage in the Division Battles, scapegoats he could shift the blame on when things would inevitably get hairy later on. And yet, his feelings for both Gentaro and Dice (that stupid, blessed idiot) surfaced like nothing.

Only his carefully crafted lies could make it otherwise.

But it was hard to lie to a liar, even if Gentaro was as soft and sentimental of a liar as they come.

Ramuda moved closer, definitely intent on stealing all of Gentaro's body warmth for his own. He didn't care if that would make Gentaro shiver or something to that extent, especially since he felt that the other deserved to be cold this morning. It was amusing to know that the writer acted like such hot shit all the time, but in reality, he was a passionate and sentimental mess of a man in bed. Or maybe he was like that all the time—breathless, helpless, yielding—and the lies were just one of those "defense mechanisms" that Ramuda had been accused of using far too many times before in the past.

If that was the case, Ramuda wanted to see more. Not just for the fun and pleasure of nights like their last, but for the days where Gentaro could write his stupid books, and Ramuda could play his stupid rhythm games and they would do those things side-by-side without a word said between them. Not just for sex and stress relief, but for genuine enjoyment of each other's company. And they could go out with Dice, too, and the three of them would romp the streets of Shibuya like they owned them (because, _uh,_ they sort of did).

He wanted more than this. More, more, more. He really liked Gentaro's quotes, in actuality. Because life had no meaning, at least not for people like them. It was all about _desire,_ and wanting things to happen, and not so much wondering _why_ those things would happen. Lies don't explain things as much as they wish for other things to happen.

It was no surprise that Ramuda, so very badly, wanted them to _happen._

So even if it meant hurting Gentaro a little bit (or a lot), he would deny his inquiries, and promise him that their lives were so meaningless that they might as well just up and die right now. He would claim that every little thing that Gentaro worried himself over was inconsequential and unimportant, and tear apart those stupid webs of thought that occupied every corner of the other's brain. He would put the meaning in _meaningless_ —he would rewrite what was never written.

Life is about desire, after all.

And Ramuda didn't want anything else but Gentaro.


End file.
